Arctic Monkeys album is influenced by The Smiths

Arctic Monkeys Alex Turner has revealed that there is a strong influence from The Smiths on the band’s latest album ‘Suck It And See’.

Turner said that though he wasn’t consciously attempting to channel The Smiths while writing ‘Suck It And See’, he didn’t mind if people compared his band’s new record to the Manchester legends.

He said: “I love The Smiths. I don’t know if I was listening to a great deal of it while I was writing this last record but I don’t mind that coming through in our songs at all. The other influence we have from Manchester, I suppose, is John Cooper- Clarke and whilst I think his influence is really prevalent in that first record it also still hangs around in some of the couplets on this new Monkeys album as well.”

Alex Turner also admitted that he has started to enjoy the experience of being a frontman a lot more on the band’s recent tours and has even started engaging in crowd participation.

Speaking about his behaviour as a frontman, Turner said, “I have started to enjoy that side of things and I’ve done things on stage recently that I never thought I would have done. Being up there in the limelight, if you like, is something that didn’t come naturally to me at all, like singing, it’s something that has built up over time. But now I’m doing stupid crowd participation things like shouting, ‘just this side sing’. That was a gag that we used to have in the practice room but I actually went through with it the other night and felt like I had to apologise.”